On 28th November (Tuesday), BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover apologised before the Delhi High Court in connection with his social media posts against BharatPe. Appearing for Grover, Advocate Giriraj Subramanium told the High Court that Grover is tendering an apology. His counsel also gave an undertaking that he would not take any actions in violation of the Court’s orders.
Subramanium also apprised the Court that Grover had taken down his tweets as well. Nonetheless, Justice Rekha Palli pulled him up stating that Grover’s conduct was ‘appalling’. Subsequently, the court also imposed a fine of ₹2 lakh on Ashneer Grover for violating an earlier court order.
Notably, in May 2023, the Delhi High Court passed an order in which it asked both Grover and BharatPe not to use ‘unparliamentary’ and ‘defamatory’ language against each other.
However, BharatPe later submitted an application in its pending suit, highlighting that Grover had made some social media posts earlier this month in which he allegedly made ‘defamatory’ remarks against the company. It was submitted before the court that he was a habitual offender and had been violating the Court’s orders repeatedly.
BharatPe’s counsel, Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal argued that by the time he deleted his tweets, the posts had been picked up by the media and the damage was already done.
After examining the application as well as the apology, Justice Palli observed that she was appalled to see Grover’s conduct. Resultantly, the High Court bound Grover to his undertaking and asked him to pay ₹2 lakh to the Delhi High Court Clerks Association.
During the conclusion of the hearing, Grover’s counsel said that there are nearly 15 proceedings pending between BharatPe and Grover. He urged the court to refer the court to mediation. However, opposing counsel Sibal rejected his suggestions.
Meanwhile, on 16th November, Shark Tank India fame Ashneer Grover and his spouse Madhuri Jain were stopped at terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport while they were travelling to New York. The action was taken based on a lookout circular (LOC) that the Delhi Police’s Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) issued against them earlier that week. An investigation is ongoing against the two for alleged fraud at BharatPe that had caused a loss of Rs 81 crore to the company.
Ashneer Grover and his wife were booked for fraud
In May this year, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi police registered a case against former BharatPe managing Director Ashneer Grover, his wife and others “for using company funds inappropriately based on various forged documents”.
It was alleged that they had embezzled money and caused losses to Resilient Innovations Private Limited, the company that manages BharatPe, totalling Rs 81 crore.
The FIR had been registered under 20/406/408/409/467/468/471/120B sections of IPC.
Ashneer Grover sent an e-mail to the company board late on 28th February 2022, informing them about their resignation amid the ongoing investigation into the financial fraud at the company.
Ashneer’s resignation had come a day after Ashneer Grover lost the arbitration in Singapore. He had filed the arbitration case against the fintech platform for launching a probe against him and almost a week after the firm sacked his wife, Madhuri Jain, who was the company’s head of controls, for alleged financial irregularities including creating bogus invoices and billing the company for personal beauty treatments and vacations overseas.
